The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-01-06

estimate their life on earth by their SORROWS
and their misfortuncs. Through great
many OF your lives the ploughshare hath
gone very deep, turning up q terrible furrow.
You have been betrayed and misrepresented,
and set upon, and slapped of impertinence,
and pounded of misfortune The brightest
life must have its shadows, and the smoothest
path its thorns. On tho happiest brood the
hawk pounces. No escape from trouble of
somo kind. While glorious John Milton was
losing his eyesight he heard that Salmasius
was glad of it. While Sheridan's comedy was
being enacted in Drury Lane theatre, Cum
berland, bis enemy, sat growing at it in the
stage box. While Bishop Cooper was sur
rounded by the favor of learned men his wife
took his lexicon manuscript, the result of q
long life of anxiety and TOLL and threw itinto
the fire. Misfortune, trial, vexation for al
most every one Pope, applauded of all tho
world, has a stoop in the shoulder that annoys
him so much that he has a tunnel dug, SO that
be may go unobserved from garden to grotto
ard from grotto' to garden. Cano, the
famous Spanish artist, is disguised
with the cruciflx that the priest holds
before him, because it is such poor speci-
men of culture And so sometimes through
taste and sometimes through learned menace,
and sometimes through physical distresses-
aye, in ten thousand ways, troubles come to
harass and annoy And yet it is unfair to
measure a mans life by his misfortunes, be-
cause where there is one stalk of nightshade
there are fifty marigolds and harebells; where
there is one cloud thunder charged there are
hundreds that stray across the heavens, the
glory Of land and sky asleep in their bosom.
Because death came and took your child
away, did you Immediately forget all the five
@a,,
| which she came every night for q kiss, all the
tones of your heart pealing forth at the sound
of her voice or the soft touch of her hand?
Because in some financial Euroclydon your
| fortune went into the breakers, did you for
| get all those years in which the luxuries and
| extravagances of life showered on your path
| wayz Alas that is an unwise man, an IN
| grateful man, unfair man, an unphilO-
sophie man. and, most of all, an unchristian
| man, who measures his life on earth by
groans and tears, and dyspeptic fit and abuse,
and scorn and terror, and neuralgia thrust.
Again, l remark that there are many
people who estimate their life ON earth by the
amount of money they have accumulated.
They say: @The year 1866, or 1876, or 1886
was wasted" Why2 Made no money. Now,
it is all cant and insincerity to talk against
money as though it had no value. 1t is re-
| finement, and education, and ten thousand
blessed surroundings. 1t is the spreading of
the table that feeds your childrens hunger,
| 1t is the lighting of the furnace that keeps
! you warm. 1t is the making Of the bed on
which you rest from care and anxiety. 1t is
the carrying out at last of you to decent
sepulture. and the putting up of the slab, on
which is chiseled the story of your Christian
hope 1t is simply hypocrisy, this TRADE in
| pulpit and lecture hall, against money,
as though it had no uses 1t is hands,
and feet, and sails, and ten thousand
| grand and glorious enterprises But while
| all this is SO, he who uses money, or thinks of
money as anything but a means to an end,
| will find out his mistake when the glittering
treasures slip out of his nerveless grasp, and
he goes out of this world without shilling of
money or a certificate of stock. He might
| better have been tho Christian porter that
opened his gate OF the begrimed workman
who last night heaved the coal into his cellar.
| Bonds and mortgages and leases have their
| ase, but they make a poor yardstick with
which to measure life. They that boast them
| Eelves in their wealth, and trust on the malti-
sude of their riches, none of them can by any
means redeem his brother nor give to God
| ransom for him. that he should not see cor
| ruption "Wise men die, likewise the fool
! and the british person perish, and leave their
wealth to Others"
| But / remark: There are many-I wish
| there were more-who estimate their life by
| their moral and spiritual development. 1t is
| not sinful egotism for a Christian man to say:
| II am purer than used to be. l am more
| consecrated to Christ than l used to be.
have got over great many of the bad habits
in which l used to indulge. l am a great
| deal better man than | used to be.n There is
no sinful egotism in that. 1t is not base ego
| tism for o soldier to say: II know more about
military tactics than l used to before took
musket in my hand, and learned to present
arms and when l was pest to the drilling
officer" 1t is not base egotism for a sailor to
say: 81 know how better to clew down the
mizzentopsail, than / used to before had
ever seen ship" And there is no sinful
egotism when Christian man, fighting the
battles of the Lord, or if you will have it,
voyaging towards haven of eternal rest.
says: Il know more about spiritual tactics,
and about voyaging towards heaven, than l
used tor Why, there are those in this pres
ence who have measured lances with many
foe, and unhorsed it. There are Christian
men here, who have become swarthy by
hammering at the forge of calamity. They
| stand on an entirely different plane
| of character from that which they once oc-
cupied. They are measuring their life on
earth by golden gated Sabbaths, by pente-
costal prayer meetings, by communion tables,
by baptismal fonts, by hallelujahs In the
temple They have stood on Sinai and heard
it thunder. They have stood ON Pisgah and
looked over into the Promised Land They
| have stood on Calvary and seen the cross
bleed. They, can, like Paul the Apostle,
| write on their heaviest troubles "light," and
"but for moment" The darkest night their
soul is irradiated, as was the night over
Bethlehem, by the faces of those who have
come to proclaim glory and good cheer.
They are only waiting for the gate to open,
and the chains to fall off, and the glory to
begin.
Iremark again: There are maryland wish
there were lnore-who are estimating life by
the amount of good they can do. John Brad
ford said he counted that day nothing at
all in which he had not, by pen OF
tongue, done some good If man
begin right, l cannot tell how many tears he
may wipe away, how many burdens he may
lift, how many orphans he may comfort, how
many outcasts he may reclaim. There have
been men who have given their whole life in
the right direction, concentrating all their
|
physical force and enthusiasm for Christ.
They climed the mountain, and delved into
the mine, and crossed the sea, and trudged
the desert, and dropped at last into martyrs
graves, waiting for the resurrection of the
just They measured their lives by tho chains
they broke off, by tho garments they put
upon nakedness, by the miles they Travelled to
alleviate every kind of suffering. They felt
in the thrill of every nerve, in the motion OF
every muscle, in every throb of their heart
in every respiration of their lungs,
the magnificent truth: "No man liveth
for himself" They went through
cold and through heat, foot blistered,
cheek snitten, back scourged, tempest
lashed, to do their whole duty. That is the
way they measured life-by the amount OF
good they could do. Do you want to know
bow old Luther was; how old Richard Bax-